Sixty Days: A visit to a wounded P-I globe

Dave DeFrank works on the neon on Monday January 12, 2009 on the Seattle P-I’s signature neon globe atop its waterfront building in Seattle. DeFrank has been working on the Seattle icon since 1968. The words say, “It’s in the P-I”. (Photo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Joshua Trujillo)

Monday afternoon photographer Josh Trujillo said a white-bearded man who’s been working on the globe for decades was harnessed to its surface, fixing a letter while people below had one of their hardest days.

“You want to come upstairs?” he asked.

The sky was a blank white when Josh and I shook hands with 67-year-old Dave DeFrank. We had watched him from the roof, hanging by a harness, wielding wire cutters and tinkering with a “t.” With the approval of property managers, we’d climbed the base and met with the globe’s southern hemisphere. DeFrank joined us, descending 25 feet from the equator like the globe was his top bunk.

“So, how long have you been working on this thing?” I asked, trying to be casual. Casual was hard.

We were in the presence of the paper’s greatest icon, and its greatest caretaker, on the first workday since Hearst president Steve Swartz stood in the newsroom four stories down and said it could all be over.

“Too long,” DeFrank answered, looking up at the globe. “I’m retired. They called me back. That’s how bad it is.”

Rust is seen under the neon shape of the island country of New Zealand on the Seattle P-I’s signature neon globe atop its waterfront building in Seattle on Monday January 12, 2009. (Photo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Joshua Trujillo)

The globe is big. Bigger than people think. And old. Snow from December’s storms had frozen and sheared off some of the neon and wiring on its 30-foot-wide exterior, causing a bunch of electrical shorts, DeFrank told us. And he clarified: “too long” meant since 1968, two decades after the globe was built.

DeFrank’s co-worker, 33-year-old Andy Colton, said the globe has been DeFrank’s “baby” for years.

But when DeFrank talked about it, he shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms. He didn’t say how great it was or what it meant to the city. He just went on and on about how it needs new panels, new wiring, new rivets.

“It’s really worn out now,” he said. “Patchwork isn’t enough.”

The P-I is on its knees, and DeFrank is talking about its brightest beacon like it’s nothing more than a big metal ball.

But who were we kidding? He was right. It might look great from a condo window or from Elliott Bay, on those nights when all the letters light. But up close, the thing’s a mess.

There’s rust stains on the skin. Webs of spider eggs on the panel edges. The color, DeFrank told us, is a pale shade of what it used to be. Then Colton poked its wounds — scraped flakes off the surface with a Sharpie marker — just to show us the shape it’s in.

“It’s so rusty,” Colton said. “It’s like putting screws into a saltine cracker.”

Suddenly, the whole globe — this feature of the nighttime skyline — looked sad. Colton’s words sounded like a metaphor.

Could saving the P-I be as hopeless as saving its globe?

DeFrank learned about the P-I’s possible sale through Colton, and Colton had learned just that morning. When I asked how he felt about the news, considering how long he’s watched over the globe, DeFrank seemed confused at first. Like it wasn’t his business. Or it wasn’t ours.

Then he softened up. He remembered working on the globe in his 20s, how his boss would start a call ordering repairs when a Queen Anne resident pointed out a busted light: “‘The neighbors are complaining,'” DeFrank said, chuckling.

Before we left, I asked him one more thing: How much longer did he think the globe would last?

“I said 10 years ago it was in bad shape,” DeFrank said. “It’s still running.”

Dave DeFrank, who has been maintaining the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s signature neon globe since 1968, talks about the state of the neon – damaged in a recent snowstorm – with Andy Colton, who DeFrank has trained to maintain the globe. Joshua Trujillo/P-I

See more of Josh Trujillo’s photos from our trip upstairs here. Thanks to Josh and Casey McNerthney for their help making this post happen.

“Sixty Days: A P-I Journal” is a look at the thoughts of a daily newsroom faced with the possibility of closure and hoping for the best. Our previous installments come from Managing Editor David McCumber:

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